Tom Toles for October 11, 2017

Coming Soon! USA #3! The Chinese are going solar so they can be at the cutting edge in business and people can breathe in Peking again. Meanwhile we will be falling behind on a self-destructive course.

We too can have a sky like the ones found in Beijing.

The House Natural Resources (destruction) Committee has been at this since R’s took the majority on all committees. Actually, all the committees have pushed to destroy as much of America as possible.

It would be unbelievable if we weren’t living it.

The last time America was Great, Tom Lehrer sang “Don’t drink the water and don’t breathe the air!”

money, its all about the money….those rich dumbnuts know they will always be able to purchase clean drinking water and uncontaminated food…and they are probably right….the citizens of our nation think not having clean water or healthy food will never happen to us….

Humm. I wonder what Trump is going to do when he finds out that the world’s coal reserves are running low? The Coal industry, and all the Coal Miners’ Unions already know.

It’s sad that THIS is the war he’s winning!

Coal is dead.

“Clean Coal” Onwards to the PreCambrian, When jellyfish ruled the seas

He’s kind of a steampunk.

MOTHER EARTH DISHEVELED – {limerick}

At Earth their guns were leveled.

She lay there depleted, disheveled.

The malefactors

were carbon extractors

enriched by an Earth thus bedeviled.

=========

Investing in coal in the 21st Century is the equivalent of investing in typewriters at the beginning of the personal computer era.

EMPEROR WITHOUT CLOTHES – {1.20 limericks & image}

A fit the Emperor throws,

as Senator Corker knows, -

- when you point out

he’s a childish lout

in diapers without

what Emperors wear as cloes.

… Image:

http://media.cagle.com/47/2015/11/30/172243_600.jpg

=======

Somebody skipped their economics classes or paid someone else to take the exams?

China is phasing out coal and going solar big time.

Republicans want climate destroying coal because they get bribes from the Koch brothers.

If you are tired of ignorant denying greedy Republicans destroying the earth, stop voting for them.

I think it’s hilarious that folks are posting the same responses on every comic!

Remember the Battle of Stalingrad during WW2? The German juggernaut ran into a ferocious rear-guard action from the Soviet defenders who battled street by street, block by block, building by building, always moving back only a notch before fighting even more fiercely from the next fortified position behind them. The battle had a foregone conclusion, but that didn’t stop the fanatical defenders from laying down the last Russian life over the last centimetre of Stalingrad.

So it has been with climate-change deniers. Each week their commissars pass down the latest rallying cries, which are faithfully, frequently, and loudly chanted by the troops each time they’re forced to move back another next block. Here’s a sampling:

What’s global warming?

That’s a hoax.

Sure, there are seasonal fluctuations. So what?

What makes you think the glaciers are retreating? Well, that’s not ALL glaciers. OK, nice photos, but the polar ice cap hasn’t budged.

Scores of climatologists disagree.

The UN. Aren’t those the black-helicopter guys?

The polar ice cap grew ALMOST all the way back this winter.

It’s preposterous to think that humans can affect the whole planet.

A dozen climatologists disagree.

Well, there’s nothing WE can do about it.

Sunspots.

Not all climatologists agree.

Volcanoes.

I’m shoveling snow today. Global warming, ha ha ha!

Look, here’s a climatologist who disagrees.

China.

4 degrees? Is that like 7 degrees of separation, ha ha?

If it’s not primarily our fault, why should we pay for it?

Let’s not get carried away listening to only one extreme.

Scores of climatologists think we can save Holland.

Benghazi! Gun-grabbers! AP! IRS! Squirrel!

Last night on PBS Newshour, they had on Obama’s EPA chief and the head of the coal lobby to talk about this. The coal lobby guy was a gibbering idiot. He kept asserting that coal produces electricity at 4 cents / kWh and that everything else was 26 cents / kWh, which is frankly insane. He also said he had “4,000 scientists who tell him co2 is not a pollutant.” That kind of troglodyte dishonesty is what we get with Trump

OPPOSABLE THUMB – {rhyme}

There’s only one clue

that Trump’s sorta smart:

He has an opposable thumb.

Evolution comes thru; -

- we can tell Trump apart

from creatures who’re even More dumb.

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Repost: @JohnSullivan1: Just because you believe it doesn’t make it true.

The reason we know there IS human-caused global warming is because Earth’s temperatures are NOT in line with normal cycles. We are in a solar cooling cycle, for example. Suggesting (as you implicitly do) that scientists have somehow ignored normal cycles and the SUN is simply at odds with the facts.

To see human impact, google “Asian Brown Cloud.” Check images. This is a massive cloud of pollution hanging over China and India, 100% human caused. It causes measurable differences in local weather and local microclimates. Now multiply by centuries of fossil fuel use, deforestation, etc.

Here’s another picture to examine: Changes in global forest cover. You might have to scroll down a bit. WE did that. Reduction in forests means reduced absorption of CO2. http://idaholyoaks3.blogspot.com/2012/11/understanding-climate-change-part-6.html

We know how much CO2 HUMANS pump into the atmosphere per year: just over 10 peta-grams, or 10 gigatons of carbon per year. That is a substantial number!

The famous “hockey-stick” measure of CO2 in the atmosphere has been ***THOROUGHLY*** validated by scores of scientists and studies, including some done by skeptics who have since accepted the data, e.g., Richard Muller, who was one of the few legitimate and respected climate scientists who was a skeptic UNTIL HE LOOKED AT THE DATA to his own satisfaction. He says quite explicitly that he was wrong, based on data – a true scientist! https://climatecrocks.com/2015/01/09/richard-muller-i-was-wrong-on-global-warming/

And just to be clear: the relationship between CO2 and atmospheric warmth isn’t new. Svante Arrhenius made an estimate back in 1896 (yes, EIGHTEEN ninety-six), long before we even had decent atomic physics, let alone today’s many observational tools and advanced research methods and an additional century and a quarter of data — and his estimate was pretty good. It isn’t even hard.

QUIT RESPONDING TO THE CUT AND PASTING RUSSIAN TROLL BOT, @JOHNSALLYSULLIVAN

Trump’s plans add more carbon pollution into America, while ignoring infrastructure impacts of climate change, making the United States a global loser on efforts to combat climate change. He has increased greenhouse gasses, and has rescinded the commitment to protect forests. Trump revoked the Council on Climate Preparedness and Resilience, ensuring we won’t be nationally prepared for the impact of climate change. Trump ensures power plants will not limit their carbon pollution, there will be no reduction in greenhouse emission, states will not be required to meet any carbon emission reduction standards. Now, thanks to Trump, coal companies can lease land from the US government for almost nothing, while taxpayers subsidize coal production while harming human health and the environment. Now that Trump is in office, climate change is no longer considered a threat to national security. He does wants to ensure that the current impacts of climate change, and those anticipated in the coming decades are hidden and not discussed. Our waters are not longer protected from pollution and degradation – we no longer protect ponds or other small bodies of water from pollution.